How long does it take?
For a typical house, plan on one to two weeks from delivery to furniture back in place for a prefinished floor, and two to three weeks for a site-finished one.
The installation itself is the short part. Most of the timeline is acclimation before and curing after, and those are the two stages people are most often surprised by — usually because a previous contractor skipped them.
The full timeline, prefinished
| Stage | Duration | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery and acclimation | 3–5 days | Wood sits unwrapped in the actual rooms |
| Furniture and prep | 0.5–1 day | Clearing, removing base, checking the subfloor |
| Installation | 1–2 days per 500–800 sq ft | Fastening, cutting, thresholds |
| Base and shoe molding | 0.5 day | Reinstalled or replaced |
| Cleanup | 0.5 day | |
| Usable | Immediately after | The finish is factory-cured |
The full timeline, site-finished
| Stage | Duration | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery and acclimation | 3–5 days | Same as above |
| Furniture and prep | 0.5–1 day | |
| Installation | 1–2 days per 500–800 sq ft | Raw wood goes down |
| Sanding | 1–2 days | Successive grits, edges by hand |
| Staining (optional) | 1–2 days | Test panels, application, drying |
| Finish coats | 1 day per coat, 2–3 coats | Abrasion between coats |
| Walk on it in socks | +24 hours | |
| Furniture back | +3–4 days | Lift, do not slide |
| Rugs down | +2 weeks | The finish is still curing underneath |
Why does the wood have to sit there for a week?
Because wood is hygroscopic — it takes on and gives off moisture until it balances with the air around it. Acclimation means letting the flooring reach that balance in the room it will live in, not in a warehouse and not in the garage.
The NWFA target is a moisture differential of no more than about 2% between solid flooring and a wood subfloor, and 4% for plank wider than three inches.
Skip it and you get one of two outcomes, both permanent-looking and both avoidable: gaps between every board within the first dry season, or cupped edges within the first humid one.
Three to five days is typical in Napa Valley. Longer near the Delta in Rio Vista, and longer again for a house that has been sitting closed up and empty.
Prefinished or site-finished — how does it change the schedule?
| Prefinished | Site-finished | |
|---|---|---|
| Total timeline | 1–2 weeks | 2–3 weeks |
| House unusable | 2–3 days | 5–10 days |
| Dust | Minimal | Contained, but real |
| Odor | None | Low with water-borne, strong with oil |
| Surface | Micro-bevel on each board edge | Completely flat, no bevels |
| Color | Fixed by the factory | Matched to your room |
| Finish hardness | Very hard, factory-cured | Very good, site-applied |
If you need the house back quickly, prefinished. If you want a seamless surface and a custom color — which is what most Napa Valley estate work specifies — site-finished, and plan the extra week.
What actually delays a job?
In rough order of frequency:
- The subfloor is not what anyone expected. Rot, movement, or a slab with moisture readings that require mitigation. Found on day one, dealt with before anything goes down.
- A special-order product has a lead time. Wide-plank white oak, anything custom, and most stair components. This is why the material decision happens early.
- Weather. Not for the installation, but for delivery and for humidity during finishing. Finishing a floor during a wet week extends cure times.
- Furniture. Especially pianos, appliances and anything plumbed in. Discussed at the estimate so it is not a surprise on the morning.
Do I need to move out?
Usually not, but you cannot use the rooms being worked on.
Most families stay and work around it. It becomes much harder when the whole ground floor is done at once, when the kitchen is included, or when somebody in the house is sensitive to odor. In those cases two or three nights elsewhere makes a real difference — and if you are having an oil-borne finish, plan on it.
Pets should be elsewhere during sanding and for the first day of finish. Claws mark uncured finish permanently, and a drum sander is genuinely distressing for most animals.
Why can't I put the rugs back immediately?
Because dry is not cured.
A water-borne finish is dry to the touch in hours and walkable in socks after about a day. Full cure — where the finish reaches its final hardness and stops off-gassing — takes considerably longer, typically around two weeks.
Lay a rug over a curing finish and the floor beneath it cures differently from the floor around it. The result is a permanent outline of the rug. It is one of the most common avoidable regrets on a new floor, and waiting two weeks costs nothing.
Same logic for furniture: lift it rather than sliding it, and put felt pads on before it goes down, not after.
What should the schedule in my estimate look like?
Anything worth comparing will state the acclimation period, the installation days, the number of finish coats, and when you can walk on it, move furniture back and lay rugs. If a quote gives you a single "about a week" and nothing else, ask for the breakdown — that is where the difference between two bids usually lives.
Related reading
Sources: NWFA installation guidelines, CARB architectural coatings and VOC limits, CSLB guidance on written contracts.
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